Helping in Iraq

Not just that, but you live in this room with your whole family; mum, dad, brother, sister, relatives etc? 

You have no electricity, no clean running water, nowhere to go to the toilet, nowhere to wash, nowhere to cook your food, nowhere to go?!  Can you imagine what it would be like if you had no home to call your own, no hope for your future, no school to go to, no bed to sleep in, no toys to play with.

What I have described is reality for Syrian and Iraqi men, women and children. There are hundreds of children who have no one to look after them, care for them, or to love them! Many of these people have witnessed indescribable terror.  They are people, just like you and I.  They had a home and all of the things we take for granted, and in an instant all this was taken away.  For many, just surviving is a miracle in itself!

It is likely you may have read a paragraph similar to this before, I have.  The difference here is that my wife Sam and I had a heartfelt desire to try and help these people! Then, through Operation Orphan and an opportunity provided through my work I ended up in Erbil, Northern Iraq (Kurdistan) with Sam, who took such an amazing leap of faith and came to Iraq with me! How did this all start?  To keep it short, I worked in Iraq for about 12 months and started to have a real affinity with the Iraqi people I met.  At the same time Sam had been in contact with the pastor of the church in Erbil through our ties with the Christian Ministry Alliance church in Ashby and the rest is history!

How are we helping?  Sam works voluntarily with Operation Orphan and as a family we donate money to look after some of the orphans and vulnerable children there.  We met these children while we were in Kurdistan and that’s where my opening paragraph came from – Sam and I saw this and it will never leave us.

Steve